


For The Dead Travel Fast

by theweddingofthefoxes



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Car Accident, Creepy stuff, Dark Magic, Demon things, Demons, Funeral, Ghosts, Grieving, Homophobia, M/M, Magic, Modern AU, came back wrong, graveyard, it's like the first thing that happens, predation, the mcd is not a spoiler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2020-05-18 12:43:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19334761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theweddingofthefoxes/pseuds/theweddingofthefoxes
Summary: College student Ben Solo dies in a sudden accident, and his best friend Armitage begins receiving some very odd notes that seem as if they're from him. At first, Armitage thinks he could be the victim of an awful joke, but events begin to transpire that prove that Ben is back, in some form -- and he begins to learn that Ben had been keeping secrets from him throughout the time they were both alive and very, very close. What do you do when the person you miss comes back, but you don't know if they're the same?





	1. Chapter 1

Ben died on a Thursday, the funeral was on Sunday, and the harassment began on Monday. Notes slid under Armitage’s front door in what appeared to be Ben’s handwriting, that was the first thing. All of the notes said the same thing. 

 

_ Armitage!!! Can I come inside?  _

_ -Ben _

 

Weirdly, this gave Armitage some modicum of control, the first he’d had since Ben’s father had called him and told him there had been an accident. He could call a number and be incensed about something to an authority figure instead of feeling the unyielding exhaustion of grief. 

 

“I’d like to make a report,” he told the non-emergency police dispatcher that picked up. He was just in a sweatshirt and boxer shorts, and he had just woken up even though it was very close to five in the afternoon. “Someone is--” He stopped himself from saying the word _ fucking _ . “Someone is playing a cruel prank on me, and I’d like to have it on the record.”

 

Armitage explained that a friend of his had died a few days ago and that he had gotten some notes from someone pretending to be him and no he didn’t know who would do that and no he hadn’t seen anything strange and no the notes did not make any direct threat against his life or safety. 

 

“All right,” the dispatcher said. “We can send an officer out to you if you’d like to show someone the notes in person, but it’s not a crime to play a prank like that on someone, even though I completely agree it’s wrong. I completely agree. It’s just that there’s not any specific threat being made against you or anybody else.” 

 

For some reason, the thought of having to put on pants just to talk to a cop made Armitage extremely tired.

 

“Mostly I wanted this on the record. If it escalates. You know.”

 

“Yes, sir, if it escalates you should absolutely get back in touch,” the dispatcher told him.

 

He hung up and sat back down at the table, the notes all spread before him like tarot cards about to divine some awful fortune. For a moment he simply stared down at them, six in total. All with the same exact message, down to the number of exclamation points, yet all written differently enough to make Armitage certain they had not been copied or traced or anything like that. They were on pieces of lined paper that looked as if they had been torn from a pocket-sized notebook, with the scraggly edges neatly pulled off at the perforation. And they were all in Ben’s handwriting. 

 

_ Is it really Ben’s handwriting, or are you just trying to freak yourself out? _

 

_ But who else would it be? _

 

_ Anyone! Anyone but him! _

 

For a long time Armitage sat, picking at the edges of his fingernails until they hurt, saying nothing and just looking at the notes. His phone kept buzzing because people kept messaging him to say nice things, and he had no intention of answering any of them right now. 

 

Finally he got up and looked out the peephole, because maybe Ben really was standing out there, politely waiting to be allowed inside, but of course the hallway was empty.

 

* * *

 

 

Someone hit Ben around three-thirty in the afternoon while he was riding his bike down Oak Leaf street, coming back from last chemistry class of the spring semester. They hadn’t caught whoever it was, and this too made Armitage feel bizarrely purposeful. Like he -- all hundred and twenty five pounds of him -- was going to be a vigilante. Was going to exact some kind of Hollywood thriller-style revenge. 

 

_ It’s not impossible. Anyone can use a weapon.  _

 

A witness who was at a nearby ATM said that the person who hit Ben had been driving a black luxury car, maybe a Lexus. An older man, the witness described seeing. Probably some rich fucker who didn’t think he had to face any responsibility, though the witness didn’t say that. They did say the man was maybe drunk or on drugs. Apparently there had been no attempt to swerve or to slow down, and there was no hesitation in getting away after Ben had been run down. The killer was there, screaming down the street in a black car right in the middle of the day, and then they were gone.

 

* * *

 

 

Armitage had finished up his own semester a few weeks before. He had come home from his third year at Arkanis University two weeks before Ben died, ‘home’ being the apartment he sublet from his stepmother for the months out of the year he wasn’t in classes. While Ben was finishing up classes, Armitage would go to the library and study -- his fall classes promised to be grueling -- or he’d go to the local coffee shop and scroll endlessly through Twitter, sipping an iced mocha and fielding texts from Ben.

 

After the funeral, Armitage had immediately come home and looked up ways to archive all of his digital communications with Ben. He hadn’t even bothered to change out of his suit.

 

**how to archive text messages**

**how to archive facebook chat messages**

**how to save texts**

 

He’d already held onto all of the cards and notes that Ben had written for him, had already opened up the accordion folder that he kept them all in and read them twenty times. That’s why he had been so sure that the handwriting in the notes that had come under his door was Ben’s, even though it was absurd to even consider. He knew how Ben’s lowercase o’s and a’s were smushed, and how all the m’s and n’s were wide enough to sit on.  _ Can I come inside? _

 

A few weeks went by before he got any more notes. By this point, Armitage was mostly back on a normal sleep schedule, eating actual meals and not just handfuls of dry cereal because all his milk had gone bad. He felt like he had become an iron back brace, forcing his life straight and healthy and correct. A chain of platitudes rang through his head, persistent as they were false.  _ You have to just move on. You can’t wallow in this forever. You have to just keep living your life.  _ By this point it was high summer and there was no point in getting a job before the fall semester started again. His parents, in a rare show of anything resembling understanding, had agreed to cover his living expenses, with the caveat he would pay his stepmother back rent for July and August once he got back to campus and started working as a tutor once more. So Armitage worked on cleaning up the place, down to the last crevice.  

 

“Why doesn’t Mari just let you live here?” his younger brother Techie asked him one scorching day towards the end of July. “Why does she need the money from you at all?”

 

Techie had ridden over on his own bike -- yes, he was wearing a helmet, yes, Armitage, he promised he’d be careful -- and the journey had left him exhausted and sweaty. He had barged in, turned the air conditioning down to 65 degrees, and flopped onto the floor next to the bathroom while Armitage scrubbed the tiles on his hands and knees. 

 

“I dunno, Tech. It’s less than it would cost anywhere else around here.”

  
“It’s still stupid.”

 

“Poison her coffee, then.” Armitage didn’t even look up from the grout.

 

“And give Dad an opportunity to marry someone even younger? Forget it. At least Mari can cook.”

 

“Did she make me anything?”   
  


“If she did, she can bring it to you herself. I’m not carrying that on my bike.” 

 

“Text her and find out.”

 

Techie rolled onto his back and announced to his voice-to-text. “Did. You. Make. Any. Food. For. Armitage. To. Have. Period.”

 

Armitage brushed a lock of hair back off his forehead, missing his eye with his chemical-soaked fingers by an inch. The only person he really felt comfortable crying around was Techie, but Techie also made things feel so normal that he didn’t have to, mostly. “If she did, can you ask her to bring it over?”

 

“If she’s sober she probably will. She’s been feeling  _ tender _ since all this happened. You’re not the only one to bitch at me about the helmet.”

 

“If you don’t wear one I’ll kill you myself. That’s a promise.”

 

Techie’s phone buzzed and he announced, “She made chicken parmesan.” 

 

Armitage paused in his scrubbing to make a grabby-hand motion. “Make her bring it.”

 

“Can. You. Please. Bring. It. Over. Question mark. I. Couldn’t. On. My. Bike. Period. Thank. You. Exclamation point.”

 

By the time their stepmother arrived at the apartment, Armitage’s hands felt like they had too-tight gloves on and everything was painfully, punishingly clean. Techie had opened a window to let some of the fumes out. “You turned the air down that far to do that?” Armitage groused.

 

“You’re the one giving me a headache!”

 

“You’re sitting on your ass and not helping!” 

 

“I got you chicken parmesan, actually.” The doorbell rang, and Techie hopped up to get it. “And now I’m opening the door. You’re welcome.”

 

The smell of the beautifully cooked food entered the apartment before Mari did. She had big rose gold sunglasses on that made her look like a wealthy insect, and she was wearing a peach-colored dress that was embroidered with seashells. “Armitage, is your mailbox full?” she wanted to know.

 

He was standing in the kitchen, washing his hands, and he suddenly knew that it was happening again, and the cold he felt had nothing to do with the air conditioning. “No, ma’am.”

 

“Well, you’re going to need to have a talk with your mail carrier. You had a letter sitting outside your front door, and anyone could have taken it. What if your bank information had been inside? I’d have a talk with them right away.”

 

He hadn’t told Mari or his father about the notes he’d gotten a few weeks earlier. But Techie knew, of course, and the way the color drained from his face, Armitage could tell that he was thinking the same thing he was. 

 

“Thanks,” Armitage managed to say, in a voice that felt mostly normal. “I’ll do that. Tomorrow.”

 

“Tomorrow’s Sunday, honey. You’re gonna sit around waiting for nothing. But do it on Monday.” She set the covered dish and the envelope on the counter next to Armitage. “It smells awfully clean in here.”

 

“The bathroom was my project today.” He couldn’t think of anything he wanted more than for Mari to leave so he could just fucking look at the letter and get it over with. 

 

“Well, that’s always nice to see. The less I have to deal with before my fall tenants get here, the better.” 

 

She seemed perfectly willing to stand there in the kitchen talking about utter jackshit from then until the heat death of the universe, but then Techie’s brotherly telepathy kicked in and he announced, “Mari, do you actually mind giving me a ride home? The heat was just too much earlier and I didn’t feel super well while I was riding. I’ll put it in the trunk so it doesn’t mess up your seats.”

 

“Oh, Brennan.” She and their dad were the only ones who used his real name. “Didn’t I tell you it was too hot to ride your bike? You always think you know better and then realize you wouldn’t have had any problem at all if you’d just listened.”

 

The look Techie gave Armitage very clearly said,  _ I am falling on this sword for you and I need you to just briefly acknowledge that.  _

 

“Sorry, Mari. I really wanted to get out there.”

 

“Well, aren’t you going to sit and have any chicken parmesan, at least?”

 

“No, no, it’s for Armitage….”

 

Armitage listened to them natter for awhile until finally Mari was satisfied that they could leave, once she had made Armitage promise she’d get her dish back as soon as possible. All the while, anxiety was making the bottom of his stomach boil, thinking about what this letter was, why his tormentor had come back. “All right, well,” she said. “Don’t forget about that mail thing, Armitage.”

 

“I won’t,” he said, truthfully. 

 

The moment the door shut, he tore the envelope open and pulled out another note, this one also seemingly torn from the same notebook with the ragged edge pulled carefully off along the perforation. 

 

_ Armitage!!! _

 

_ I know you’re home right now. Let’s hang out like we used to. In your bathroom and your bed. Sometimes I dream about those times. You haven’t visited me once but when you do you’ll get instructions. _

 

_ Okay? _

 

_ You’ll know me when you see me. I know you can see me. _

 

_ -Ben _

 

By the time Armitage finished reading the message, his stomach hurt so badly that the smell of the warm food that Mari had brought made him painfully nauseous, and he dropped the note and ran to the bathroom, didn’t make it in time, and he threw up all over the floor he had just so painstakingly cleaned. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flashback, a graveyard visit, and a strange encounter.

About six months before Ben died, the two of them had gone to a New Year’s party together. Ben had come up a couple days after Christmas and stayed in Armitage’s dorm, which was pocket-sized but which he didn’t have to share with anyone. There was only the one twin bed, which Ben wouldn’t have really fit in even if Armitage had given it up for him, so every night they layered pillows and blankets on the floor and drank up the cans of local beers that Armitage had bought with a fake ID that listed him as “Andrew Henry.” The initials were right, if not much else. In the ID photo, Armitage looked strange and dazed, like he didn’t realize his picture was being taken. They’d talk until the early morning and then sleep until nearly the afternoon. After being ground down with his finals schedule and then going to spend Christmas with his father and Mari, this felt beyond luxurious. 

The party had been fine. Nothing special. Nothing awful. At midnight Armitage had watched everyone else either kissing or shotgunning drinks, and out beyond them, as if on the edge of the solar system, Ben and their friend Phasma smoking on the patio. The door was shut, keeping the cold air out, and the sound of their voices, but they didn’t look at all interested in all of the festivities, and only seemed to notice that the countdown had finished when everyone started cheering and hooting and a few fireworks went off down the street. Ben glanced back inside, saw Armitage watching them, and smiled. 

They got back to his dorm within an hour of the new year’s arrival, tromping across snow-slick courtyards from the apartment complex to the cluster of residence halls. The room was freezing; most students had left for the Christmas holiday and nobody seemed too worried about keeping the few who had stayed for the break alive. They’d climbed into the makeshift bed they’d created on the hard narrow floor and for a few long moments they just breathed, dizzy-drunk and soaking up one another’s heat.

“What were you and Phasma talking about?” Armitage finally asked.

“You’ll think it’s. Fuckin’ dumb.”

“No, really.”

“You will.”

“How about I decide that.”

Ben hesitated, like he might really not tell Armitage at all, but then he responded, “Getting what you want.”

“Getting what you want?”

“Mmmhm.”

“Like, New Year’s resolutions?”

“It kind of started that way. But we were talking more in like, the magic way.”

“What magic way?” Armitage wanted to know, inching just a little bit closer. 

“Like, bending the will of the universe and stuff.” Ben had apparently not detected any venom in Armitage’s voice, and so he leaned in more too, continued talking, his whisper stage-loud even though there was no need to whisper, hardly anyone was in this building to hear them. “Like getting what you want with magic that can help you.”

That Ben had an interest in magic and the occult was not news to Armitage. This was something that Armitage had known about him since the two of them were in middle school. Ben had always been fascinated with sci-fi and fantasy, and stories where people discover they were in possession of strange powers. To Armitage, who had always preferred historical fiction, these kinds of stories had an appeal he just couldn’t comprehend, but they sure spoke to Ben. When they got older, Ben had dabbled with what Armitage could best describe as ‘Goth stuff’, though it had never really gotten to any kind of extreme, at least fashion-wise. Ben wore jeans, a t-shirt, and a flannel basically every day, dependable as a character in a cartoon. Hardly the Crow. But yes, Armitage was always kind of aware of this -- interest. 

“What are you going to try to get?” Armitage asked, because he was just really tipsy and he wanted to kiss Ben and Ben liked talking about this and it all just seemed to work, he just should keep talking. 

“What?”

“With your magic.”

“I’ll get you, of course.”

“You have me.”

“But I don’t, Armitage.”

“You will when my father dies.”

Ben scoffed. “And how long will that take?”

“It’s not like he’s young.”

“So how much time do we have to waste waiting for him to kick it?”

“Your alternative is doing magic until he dies.”

“I’m not going to kill him.” Ben sniffed, moved even closer, so they were just barely not touching now. “I’m going to use my will and. Change something.”

“You’re going to make it so he doesn’t care that I’m gay?”

He expected Ben to laugh at that, but instead, Ben went in for a kiss, and the moment their mouths were parted enough for him to speak, he asked, “And what if I could?”

“Ben.”

The thought, too beautiful to be held. A thought like staring into the sun. It would only hurt in its splendor. 

“What if I could make anything I wanted real?” Ben asked again, kissing Armitage’s cheek, his neck, his jaw. “Why should I think I can’t?”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Learn how to do it.”

So much for getting any more specific than that. “You have me now,” Armitage insisted once again. “Think about now.”

“Why should I have to hide you?”

“Don’t worry about that.”

“I don’t worry, I’m just -- I wish other people could know.”

“Now’s not the time for other people to know.” Armitage knew it sounded like he was undermining him, like Ben’s frustrations were invalid, but what else could he say? The only person who knew was Techie. The more people who knew, the more possible it was for word to get back to his father --

He could not think about that. Would not. 

“Do you think you could really do that?”

“You can use magic to do anything.”

Ben sounded so confident, like he really could. For a moment, Armitage really believed him. Then he felt compelled to ruin the moment. 

“Like Harry Potter magic?”

“Oh, fuck off.”

They were kissing again, closeclose in the deep chill coming off the narrow floor.

“Harry Potter wouldn’t dare touch what I’m doing,” Ben said, and god did he sound confident, like he could really coax some kind of dark magic out of the world that would change everything for them. But six months later, Ben was dead.

* * *

The only time that Armitage had been to the cemetery was the day of Ben’s funeral. It wasn’t like in the movies, where it was raining no matter what and everyone had black umbrellas. The day of Ben’s funeral was punishingly hot, and humid on top of that. The women had worn the shortest dark skirts they could get away with while still maintaining respect, and then men had suffered in their suits. Armitage had felt vaguely mocked by the brightness and heat. Yet another fuck-you. It wouldn’t rain again for two weeks. 

But now. This note. 

_You haven’t visited once._

That much was true.

So if you go, Armitage asked himself as he sat in his car with the A/C on, blasting the Bangles, will this all get better, or will it get worse? 

Only one way to find out. 

He had been tempted to ask Techie to come along, but in the end he decided it would be better to just go alone. No need to bring him into all of this. Techie was already worried about him. After Armitage had knelt, shaking, on the bathroom floor, and then finally cleaned everything up again, once more with feeling, he called Techie, who squirreled himself away into his closet to ensure nobody would hear anything. 

“What are you gonna do?” Techie had asked in a small voice, after Armitage read him the newest note. 

“I guess I’m gonna go see his grave. If that’s what he wants. Or what -- whoever wants.”

“What if. Um. What if he’s there?”

“Well he’s supposed to be there.”

“Yeah but like, what if you see his ghost?”

“Then I’ll feel a lot less crazy, to be honest with you.”

He’d really anticipated it, too. He’d been wildly, completely sure that when he walked the rows and found Ben’s tombstone, he’d see Ben in some form or fashion. At best, Ben would just be a person, a living guy, standing there with his hands in his pockets like he always used to if he were waiting for Armitage somewhere. At worst...as much as Armitage told himself not to consider the worst, he couldn’t banish an image of some kind of zombie awaiting him, something only sort of Ben-shaped, rotting in the July sun.

But there was only one other person at the cemetery when Armitage had walked in, a guy in a suit who was walking around off in the distance, not stopping at any particular grave but just walking. Maybe he didn’t know where he was going. Armitage found his way to his own destination with surprising ease, considering what a daze he’d been in the only other time he had been here. 

**Benjamin Bailey Solo  
Beloved in all ways**

First time seeing that headstone. It left him breathless in a way he did not expect.

Beloved.

Armitage stood there, unmoving, shielding his eyes with his hand against the vast ferocious light pouring down. There were fresh flowers there, no doubt from his mother, unless maybe that cousin of his had brought them. Rey, her name was. She had lived in England for a long time before moving in with Ben’s family to help his dad run his business, and Ben always teased Armitage that she sounded like him, since Armitage had been raised by an English father, or, more accurately, English au pairs, and as a result his accent had become some bizarre halfway point out in the Atlantic. He was used to taking shit for sounding like a movie character from the 40’s. She was the kind of person who would think it was important to bring flowers, he thought. 

Briefly, he entertained the thought of telling her about all of this. She seemed -- knowing. More than once he had suspected she could tell that there was something between himself and Ben. Canny, yes. Maybe she would understand what was going on.

Then he remembered how fucking crazy he would sound. 

The wind picked up a bit, just enough to abate the heat a bit, and the flowers bowed their heads. Something was making a flapping sound, and for a moment Halloween thoughts rattled in Armitage’s head (is that a bat? A vampire?). But the source was far tamer -- an abandoned red spiral-bound notebook that had fallen behind the headstone. 

With pages, Armitage realized as he walked closer, torn out carefully, so the edges were smooth instead of simply ripped out. Pages of a size he recognized. 

He picked up the notebook like it was a snake that might bite him, his heart thudding in his ears. It felt like the temperature had dropped twenty degrees since he had noticed it. Setting the notebook on the flat top of the headstone, Armitage carefully examined each page, flipping through slowly in search of any more notes, but the thing was empty. 

“It’s not right to do that, young man.”

Armitage couldn’t help but literally jump at the sound of a disapproving older man’s voice -- what else is new? Not his dad, of course, but the other person who Armitage had seen walking around, the man wearing the suit. Now that he could see the man more closely, he had to admit the guy was a bit--well--frightening. He was very tall and thin, with a fierce and ugly face and piercing eyes, and his suit seemed matted and dirty, like he had just rolled out of a grave.

_Okay, but what if he did, though?_ Anything was possible. Ghosts, zombies. Vampires. 

“I’m sorry?”

“Leaning on a tombstone like that.”

“Oh, I--I was picking something up. I wanted…” He felt his throat tighten like he was allergic to his own excuses, and the man only frowned further, made a low clucking sound.

“Perhaps you should leave,” the man said, so imperiously that it didn’t occur to Armitage to argue, or question the situation whatsoever. He closed the notebook and hightailed it back to his car, not daring to look back or even breathe until he was in the parking lot, inside the car itself, with the doors locked. Armitage tossed the notebook on the passenger seat and turned the air conditioning up as high as it would go, hot again after feeling so horribly chilled. 

It had all happened so fast. And yet it left him shaken. 

He drove too fast getting home, knowing he was going too fast but not caring. Hardly anyone was around. It was fine. When he took a too-sharp turn to get into the complex where he lived, the notebook fell to the floor. 

“What was the point of all that?” he asked aloud, and the bitterness in his own voice shocked him. But how else could he possibly feel? Going out there, on the instructions of -- of Ben, maybe, only to be chased off by something Bad, yes, it was absolutely bad, whoever that person was, it was like that guy was purposely trying to keep him from seeing Ben --

_Come on. He was just a shitty old guy._

_Or a vampire._

When he reached down to pick up the fallen notebook, once he had parked, there was writing on the page it had opened up to. In Ben’s handwriting.

_Do not talk to him EVER again! Don’t even look at him!!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More more more! Thanks so much to my Twitter followers for middle name suggestions for Ben, and to dracadancing for the one I went with. :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey offers a key to understanding just what Ben was up to before his death -- and Armitage must decide that he truly wants to know the answer to that question.

Rey did not seem at all surprised that Armitage had gotten in touch with her, had asked her if she wanted to get lunch and chat awhile. She did not interpret this invitation as a date or even as a friendly get-together, but instead seemed to innately understand that he wanted to ask her about something extremely weird. They met at a vegetarian cafe that doubled as a tiny metaphysical shop; there were crystals and tarot cards and art prints of single gingko leaves for sale. Armitage ordered a black bean burger that he only ate a third of, and when Rey was finished with her own lunch, he wordlessly pushed his plate towards her and she finished that too. 

“Do you think it’s really him?” Armitage wanted to know first.

It took a minute for Rey to finish the bite of the burger she’d started just before he had asked. He couldn’t help it. He needed to know. 

“Yes,” she answered, the moment she could. “But not in the way that you remember.”

Her answer was so fast and sure that it made him feel cold all over. She was like one of those mediums from the olden days, the ones who would sit people in parlors and talk to the dead, except her hair was in a high ponytail and she was wearing a pink shirt that said AIN’T YOUR BABY that was stained with motor oil instead of a long-sleeved calico dress, with a battered camouflage backpack sitting on the ground beside her.

“Have you seen him? His--spirit, or whatever?”

“It’s not me he’s trying to see.”

“What do you mean?”

She thought about what she was going to say for a long moment. She pushed the bun off the burger they had both been eating, peered at the patty to inspect the sauce that had come with it. “Whatever Ben did, he did for you.”

“I didn’t--I don’t--”

She cut off his sputtering.

“It’s nothing you made him do. Or asked him to. You know how headstrong he is.”

There was something chilling, too, about discussing Ben in the present tense.

“He just decided this was the path he wanted to take,” she went on. “Did he ever tell you much about it?”

“No, not much,” Armitage admitted. The conversation they’d had on the floor of his dorm notwithstanding, he didn’t really know much about what Ben had actually _done_. “I know he was interested in--magic, he’d said.”

“Yeah. He asked for my advice a lot, at first. I think he was a bit jealous of how much I knew. But he was genuinely interested in learning more.”

“But about what?”

“About tapping into inner powers. I don’t know exactly how to describe it--I’d never really had to describe it to Ben, since he just seemed to know. We were on a wavelength for a time. But he wanted to push ahead in ways that, if I may be indelicate, seemed fucked up. There was this bookstore he would go to, and he’d talk to the owner for a long time. I don’t even know how he found out about this place. The guy encouraged his study of some obscure….well. Ben never used the word _demon_ , but I don’t know how else to describe that, either.”

“Oh,” was all Armitage could say, because he was terrified of how much sense all of this was making. 

“Would you believe me if I told you I found his journals, after….all that? And that I never read them?”

Armitage shifted in his seat. “Sure. I don’t feel like you have any reason to lie to me.” 

“I brought them.”

He wasn’t expecting that. 

“For me?”

“Better you have them than anyone else, right?”

“Do you think they’re…” The time to feel stupid about asking questions like the one he was about to pose had long passed, but he still paused. Took a breath. Asked anyway. “Dangerous?”

“I wouldn’t give them to you if I thought they were dangerous.”

She lifted her camo bag up into her lap and pulled three notebooks out. Three spiral-bound notebooks, all in different colors, but all the same brand as the one that Armitage had found in the graveyard. All weathered and bent, all full, or almost -- the one with the green cover, perhaps the newest one, still had a few empty pages in the back. Everything in Ben’s unmistakable handwriting. 

“What should I do with them?” Armitage asked, flipping through the green notebook gingerly, as though it might burn his fingers to touch it. 

“Probably don’t read any of it out loud if it sounds like a curse.”

“Is that a joke?”

Rey just raised an eyebrow at him. “If there’s something he wants you to know, you might find it in one of these. That might be the explanation for your haunting.”

She gave him the address for the strange bookshop that Ben had supposedly visited in order to get the advice on the demon, too, but when Armitage pulled up at the spot Google Maps had directed, after they had finished lunch, there was just an empty building with a sign in the window that read FOR LEASE and a phone number to call.

* * *

Back at the apartment, Armitage sat down with all of the notebooks -- the three that Rey had given him in green and black and blue, and the red one that he’d found himself. Ben had been sporadic about dating information, but there was enough to go on that he could put them in order and work his way through. He got up and made himself a cup of tea, scalded his tongue right away. It didn’t stop him from what he was doing. The handwriting was often rushed and messy and it took him a long time to parse what Ben was talking about, especially because he wasn’t particularly versed in magic-speak and he kept having to look things up on his phone. 

Dinnertime came and he heated up a bowl of soup in the microwave, and then let it sit there, untouched, as he kept reading. It wasn’t until he was thinking about going to bed that he even remembered that it was still there, ice-cold, so unappealing that he just dumped it in the sink and turned off the lights. All the lights were off now, except the side lamp next to the chair where he was poring over the notebooks, and the world felt close and still and suffocating. 

The notebooks were, of course, not written for any audience but Ben himself. They weren’t set up like novel with clear beginnings, middles, or ends, and they only sometimes had any semblance of narrative at all. The fact that they relied on Ben’s prior knowledge made them even more inaccessible than the occult talk. Still, there were blocks that Armitage could easily read. 

_The main danger with this particular creature, Mr. Snoke told me, is that it’s always looking for someone to bind itself with. It keeps wanting to be reborn into the world, and it’ll use any foothold it can to do that. Your living body, your spirit, whatever...Give it an inch and it’ll take a mile. But if you can make a connection with it, you can persuade anyone you want of anything you want. It sounds too good to be true, but of course there’s sacrifice, he said. He has an agreement with this thing, and he told me its name, because he thought I was ready to know it, and you can only see it if you know it. Kylo Ren. If you know it, you can call it, and he’s called it before. If Rey knew, she wouldn’t agree that I was ready, she’s been learning about this kind of stuff since she was a kid and I know she doesn’t approve...but the persuasion, damn it! I could talk Armie’s dad out of hating the thought of us together, and anyone else who stood in our way._

Armitage read that section over and over, his excitement and his terror like two cats fighting in his bowels. Rey had been right, Ben had been doing all of this work for _him_ , he had been working for a future for them, even if he had gone down some strange crooked path to find that -- of course Ben would find a way to make the impossible possible. Only dark magic would have been able to convince Armitage’s father that it would be all right for Armitage to have a boyfriend, so Ben had pursued that.

Though perhaps the temptation of being able to convince anyone to do anything shouldn’t be discounted. 

It took a moment to realize that he, too, now knew the name that the strange bookshop owner had entrusted Ben with. Perhaps they were now the only two living people who did. 

_It was strange,_ Ben’s writing went on. _Mr. Snoke said this like a warning, but he also said it with more than a little pride -- said that Kylo Ren could make a person that it bonded with into something like it too, living or dead, and if you had the kind of agreement he had, you could manage other people it had gotten. Like your own personal army. He said that he didn’t give a lot of people this information because it was dangerous for them. But he also said that he himself had gotten control of people who had gotten out of control this way. For their own safety, and for everyone else’s safety, he said. But it felt a little bit like he was saying he could do this, if he wanted. To me._

Before Armitage could fully process what he had just read, the notebook skittered out of his lap, its pages flapping helplessly, as if it had been blown away by a gale-force wind. Armitage leapt out of the chair, knocking into the side table and nearly toppling the lamp, only managing to keep it from shattering on the ground by grabbing it by the cord and yanking upward. Behind him, he could hear the sound of the pages still rapidly moving, sliding across the floor, stopping with a soft bump after a one-one-thousand second. Then, silence.

It took Armitage two tries to properly replace the lamp, his hands were shaking so hard, but he managed it. 

The notebook had come to rest right at the front door, and when Armitage was within grabbing distance of the knob, there was the sound that he had been expecting to hear for weeks, ever since the notes started coming to him. 

_Knock-knock-knock_.

A beat of silence. Another. 

And then again. 

_Knock._

“Ben?”

There was no answering sound, but it didn’t stop him from continuing. 

“You can come in, Ben.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been so slammed with work lately but it's been so much fun to finally jump back into this! Such strange happenings are, uh, happening.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben, in any form, is welcome back in Armitage's home, and his bed. But Ben has something he needs to do before he can truly be 'back'.

There was silence from the hallway, but Armitage didn’t dare to move for a long time. He was waiting for the knob to turn, or rattle, the way it did in horror movies (though this whole situation was a horror movie, wasn’t it?), but it didn’t. 

“Ben,” Armitage called, the single syllable stretched to two because his voice had gone hoarse and weird. “You can. Come inside. Are you there?”

Nothing. 

Finally Armitage found a moment’s worth of courage and sucked in a noisy gasping breath, just went for it, wrenched the handle and threw the door open so hard the sound barreled down the hallway like an echoing gunshot. 

Nothing.

The hallway was empty, and Armitage thought he might be relieved. There were no monsters at his door, scraping to be let in. For all he knew, that knocking could have just been some late-shift Mormon hoping to save his soul. One who heard him sounding drunk as fuck and freaked out and who had decided to bail. But for some reason, the fact that there was nothing there just made him deeply, terribly sad.

He closed the door much more quietly than he’d opened it, dimly hoping that nothing was broken because then he’d have to go through Mari to get it fixed, but that problem felt small and unreal beside his grief. 

“Where are you?” he asked out loud, to the air, to the empty room, feeling his voice again wrinkle and crack. “I thought you were here.”

He pulled on the doorknob a few times to make sure the lock had clicked, picked up the notebook, and headed up to bed. The familiar weight of the first few days after Ben had died had climbed back on him again like a gargoyle, and the thought of brushing his teeth or washing his face seemed tiresome and wasteful. He just kicked off his pants, turned off all the lights, and got under the covers, listening to his own shaky breath. 

And then, just as he was beginning to drift off, lying on his side facing the doorway of the room, he felt the unmistakable weight of another body sinking onto the mattress next to him. 

There was a good bit of space behind him there in the bed, but there was no way for anything or anybody to get to it without passing by him, and nothing had.

Maybe whatever was there had already been in his room for awhile.

He blinked a few times, but did not move his head, or any other muscle of his body. The weight beside him shifted, just like a regular person might when they’re trying to find the most comfortable spot without waking a nearby sleeper. 

“Ben?” he whispered.

“Armitage.”

It was his voice, but croaky and odd, like he had strep. Armitage still did not move. There was a low frightened voice chattering in the back of his head warning him that this had to be a trap, this couldn’t be as good as it seemed. But to hear that voice again, after months…

“Is that you?” 

“More or less, yeah.”

“If I turn around,” Armitage wanted to know, “Am I gonna see you or am I going to see something…” He almost said the word _scary_ , but that sounded so juvenile. “...that I recognize?”

Whatever was behind him sighed. 

“Maybe.”

Armitage let that hang between them for a moment before asking his next question.

“Why did you just come in now? I would have let you in anytime.”

“It wasn’t lack of trying. I really tried.”

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too, I really-- I need you to know that.”

“Why did you leave me notes?”

“I was capable of that. I’ve been fighting to exist. The way I want to.”

“Are you still Ben?”

“You’re kind of hung up on that.”

“I just--” And Armitage was not expecting to react this way, people in horror movies cried from fear sometimes but his fear was not nearly as heavy or intense as his sadness, as the feeling that something might be taken away from him again. Nobody in those movies cried in the presence of a demon or a ghost because they missed it. But Armitage couldn’t keep talking because if he tried to say another word, he would sob, and he could not do that-- even though what he wanted to say was _I need to know it’s you, I can’t have my heart broken again._

The hand that settled on his shoulder was cold like it had been holding onto a can of soda (Techie had played that prank on him a million times, touching him with the hand that had been gripping a Sprite right out of the fridge, but Techie’s hand was not so wide or large -- just by feeling, Armitage knew this was Ben’s) but comforting in a strange way. An attempt. A reach.

“Armitage,” the voice said again. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, choked.

“You’re sorry? Oh, no -- don’t be sorry…”

“Just tell me it’s you. Please, please, just tell me it’s you.”

“I’m me. I’m just different.”

Armitage sniffed. “Different how?”

As if he wasn’t already talking to a dead person. Different as in dead. 

“I wish I could have come to you while I was free,” the voice whispered back. “I’m working on it.”

“What do you mean by _free_?”

The weight beside him shifted again.

“You read my notebooks, right?”

“You talked about a demon called Kylo Ren.”

“It bonded to me when I was alive. It...liked me, I guess. And Snoke encouraged it all. It wanted me for good.”

Armitage swallowed, listening. The cold hand was still there on his shoulder, squeezing softly. 

“So to have me, I needed. You know. To die.”

“It killed you?”

“No. Snoke did. Snoke’s the one I need to get rid of.”

The image of the stern, ugly man in the graveyard suddenly flashed into Armitage’s mind, and he finally flinched, driving his fist up to his mouth, biting his knuckles to keep from screaming, from sobbing, from rolling out of his bed and stalking to the other side of the room to put his fist through the window.

“I saw him,” he croaked, muffled.

“Stay away from him. He takes. All he does it take.”

Armitage nodded.

“Do you want to look at me, Armie?”

“Am I going to be scared?” he finally asked. 

“You’re already scared.”

It was a point fair enough to make Armitage turn around and look.

It was him. Ben. Not a rotten zombie, not a translucent ghost, not a shape anything other than a human one. There was a nasty scar across one side of his face clear as a zipper on a jacket -- Armitage wondered if that was from the accident -- and the color of his eyes had shifted from the dark sweet brown that Armitage knew to a sickly dark yellow that looked like egg yolk. When he spoke, the teeth in his mouth looked crowded and sharp, but nothing stuck out when his mouth was closed.

It was him.

“You all right?”

“Yeah,” Armitage said, settling back on his other side. “I’m just glad you got through.” After a beat. “Are you more Ben or Kylo Ren?”

Whoever it was beside him, he moved closer, so they were facing one another like they used to, folded up in the bed or on the floor or in the bathroom, always in these close spaces together. 

“I don’t really know,” he confessed. “I remember all of the things Ben does. I don’t know what’s different, you know, mentally.”

“Are you going to suck my blood or anything?”

“I don’t think so.I just like doing this.” He paused. “And also I’m going to see that Snoke fucking suffer.”

“That’s why you’re back?”

“I’m back because Kylo Ren wanted me. I’m here because I missed you. Killing Snoke is just going to be the icing on the cake.”

They lay in silence for a long time. Every detail of Ben that had been rendered strange, the scar and the eyes and the teeth, those features slowly softened and familiarized themselves in Armitage’s mind as he stared longer and longer, hungrier, needier. 

“Are you stronger now than you were?”

“I’m learning how to steer this thing.”

Was that Ben or the demon answering? Armitage decided he’d rather not know.

“I can help you.”

“With what?”

“Killing Snoke.” 

“Armie…” Ben reached out, touched Armitage’s cheek with that cold cold hand. “He’d kill you first.”

“He wasn’t manipulating me.”

“He could.”

“Let’s do it together. Right? Like we were planning to do everything. Let’s do it together.” Armitage put his own hand on top of Ben’s, yes, he had decided this was Ben’s hand, Ben’s mind and love and intention. If he had to share his hunger for this beautiful person with a demon, well, that’s how it was going to have to be. “My father won’t suspect us now. We’ll have everything you wanted.”

“And all I need to do first is get free.”

“We can do that,” Armitage whispered, scooting closer. “We can do whatever we want now.”

The way that Ben kissed him after he said that, that was familiar too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter! This was dark and strange and sad and weird, and I am thoroughly enjoying it. One chapter left!


	5. Chapter 5

A plan always made everything easier. 

Armitage took his car slowly around the curve off the isolated back road that led to the cemetery where Ben’s body lay, so gently that the ice in his iced coffee hardly rattled. Techie had bought it for him earlier that morning in exchange for a ride to the movies. He couldn’t remember what flavor it was because everything tasted like anticipation, like blood in his mouth. 

He pressed even more on the brake, creeping slowly past the front gate, ostensibly out of respect. It also made him easy to notice. If anyone were here, and had seen him before, they’d be sure to recognize him.

Easy does it. 

“Can he be killed?” Armitage had wanted to know. 

“Oh, yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. He knows how to handle demons, but he’s still just -- he’s still just a man.”

“What if he kills me first?”

This question, Armitage had tried to make it sound snide and sarcastic, but instead it came off just as frightened as Armitage actually felt. They had been talking in Armitage’s bed again, late. Ben’s presence had flickered in and out like an unsteady radio signal, but the moments he was there, the bed felt so perfectly crowded. 

“If nothing else,” Ben had whispered, in that dark odd rasp that sounded like he was getting over a bad cold. There was no sound sweeter, anymore. “I can make sure that won’t happen.”

Ben had instructed Armitage to stay well away from anywhere Mr. Snoke might be while they formulated their plan. No approaching the cemetery, no going to the now-vacant building that Ben used to visit. “He is incredibly good at manipulation,” Ben warned. 

The journals were evidence enough of that, so Armitage didn’t ask more. Instead, he spent time with Techie, helping him with his summer web design class. He helped Mari paint some of her other properties. He watched television for hours, sitting cross-legged in his bed, no longer feeling despondent like he had early that summer -- instead, he felt _ready_. Like an animal waiting for the right moment to run, not bothering to waste any energy until the exact right time. 

And now the time had arrived. 

It was a gorgeous Saturday, not horribly hot and with a gentle breeze moving through the willows just so, and there were a few people taking the opportunity to visit loved ones. Families, couples. It took Armitage a few moments to spot him after parking, but yes, there he was. Mr. Snoke was walking around, just like he’d been last time Armitage had come. 

“I’ll be with you,” Ben had said. “Don’t doubt that. Even if it doesn’t feel like it.”

Yes. Ben had proven, again and again, that he was not going anywhere.

After a few deep breaths to steady his nerves, Armitage flung open the car door and strode out through the front gate. He was wearing the oversized rose gold sunglasses that he had ‘borrowed’ from his stepmother and it only served to make him more noticeable instead of hiding him. 

Only moments passed between Armitage coming to a stop before Ben’s grave and Mr. Snoke approaching him from behind. He could sense it before he actually heard the old man speak, and he had to wedge his tongue between his back teeth and gently bite down to keep himself from flinching at the weird cold knowledge of Mr. Snoke’s proximity. 

“So you’re back again,” the man said, in that same arrogant, commanding voice as before.

“I was hoping to find you.”

There was a pause as Mr. Snoke shuffled around so they were standing abreast. From the corner of his eye, Armitage could see that the man seemed to be wearing the same dirty suit as before, too. Like he just lived here, laying in the dirt, waiting waiting waiting. 

“Were you, now?”

“I didn’t know where else to find you, and I’m afraid you’re the only person who can help with the problem I have.”

“And what sort of problem is that?”

Armitage indicated at the headstone that read BENJAMIN BAILEY SOLO with the toe of his shoe. “Him.”

Mr. Snoke gave a low laugh, sticky with phlegm. 

“He is a troublesome one, isn’t he? Loyal only to himself. Nearly impossible to manage.”

It felt cartoonishly obvious, how loudly Armitage swallowed, listening to Mr. Snoke say that. But he knew he had to keep going. “I’ve heard you know how to make demons.”

“Oh, heavens, no. No one can _make_ a demon. I’m just a matchmaker, you see. I know exactly what sort of creature matches best with what sort of man. And Ben, well, I saved the best for him.”

“He’s been terrorizing me. All kinds of weird poltergeist stuff. I’ve been living in fear all summer long.”

“You think he’s been terrorizing you?” Mr. Snoke laughed that awful laugh again. “He destroyed my shop. I barely managed to contain him, if you want to know the truth, and I had to abandon the space. But there’s no sport in making things easy, is there? Once I get him back under control, he’ll truly be my greatest success.”

“And when you have him back under your control, he won’t bother me anymore?”

“I can assure you he will not.” Mr. Snoke tapped his wristwatch with one finger. “Suppose you come back around this way after hours, son. I don’t think I’d be able to do what I need to with so many other people around.”

A gentle invisible pressure gripped Armitage’s hand, held fast. _Yes. Good. Do what he says._

Oh, this could not have worked out more perfectly. 

“Good,” Armitage answered. “I’ll back back then.”

* * *

“I’ll need to borrow your energy. That’s -- I’d have done this a lot sooner if I didn’t need that. With you, it’ll be easier. And he won’t take me back.”

“And if he does take you back?”

“You could mourn me for real.”

“Ben. Kylo. Whatever--”

“I’m pretty sure you won’t have to.”

“I want a promise.”

“You want a lie.”

“No. I want a promise.”

“You just want to hear me say the words.”

“You already came back for me once. Why wouldn’t I believe?”

“Then I promise.”

“Yes?”

“Of course.”

* * *

Whether Mr. Snoke had been waiting in the cemetery all that time or not, Armitage didn’t know. He was there when Armitage pulled up at eleven, well past closing time. There was not a physical gate that closed, just a chain that was strung limply across the entryway, so Armitage parked on the side of the road and stepped over it. _Trespassing._ Well, he’d deal with the consequences later. Mr. Snoke stood right by Ben’s grave, arms crossed. 

“Took you long enough.”

“I had to get away from my family.” It was still so warm out, but yet again Armitage had to supress a shiver. “So what….what is it that you have to do?”

Mr. Snoke gave him a long look.

_Bluff your fucking heart out. Everything depends on it._

“The demonic attachment to you is strong, isn’t it?”

Bluff.

“Yes. Too strong. If you can sense it -- I need to get rid of it.” Armitage ran his hand through his hair. “Or I’ll go insane.”

This satisfied the old man, it seemed, and he gave Armitage an awkward pat on the shoulder. “You have a great deal of potential, did you know? You could make some headway on your own, with a little bit of guidance.”

Armitage forced himself to smile. 

“But for now. Let’s begin.”

 _The moment I come out,_ Ben murmured in Armitage’s mind, or maybe it was Kylo Ren, because the voice sounded a little warped, the way the world sometimes sounded when Armitage had a bad sinus infection and his ears were all blocked, _You run._

Mr. Snoke was speaking, but it was nothing that Armitage could understand. Dimly, he imagined it was like what English might sound like to a non-English speaker -- there were no words that he recognized, but he couldn’t pin it as anything else, Latin or Greek or German or Hebrew. He took a step back, and when Mr. Snoke didn’t pay any mind, he took another one.

And then the wind began to pick up the way it might before a big storm, loud and rustling, and it really struck Armitage in that moment that this was for fucking real. 

_GO._

Armitage scrambled, trying to take the straightest shot between the rows, and the weird language had stopped, and there was a sudden thwack of something striking Mr. Snoke’s narrow body, sending him to the ground, and the man gave an awful yell, and there was a sound that sounded like a dog whining or a seal groaning, something that made the basic rounded shapes of human words but were not quite there, and Armitage skidded to a halt in the springy grass.

There were yellow eyes that shone beyond mere reflection back there, and there was something big and mostly man-shaped racing on all fours. 

“Ingrate!” Mr. Snoke howled. “I _made_ you--”

The whining groan said something more emphatically, and there was a static edge that could be heard even above the whirl of the trees, and Armitage’s body felt completely empty, like there was barely anything left inside, but he had to keep running, just as far as the _car_ , for some reason he kept thinking that if he just got that far before anyone came along, he wouldn’t get in trouble for trespassing. 

He managed to not trip over the chain. 

The sounds were as loud as the world but when he finally made it into the cab, all he could hear was his own panting breaths. 

Ben was a demon now, yes. 

And Ben loved him.

This was where he would wait out the storm. 

“Ben,” he said, out loud, listening, but all he could see were the trees and the first few lumps that were the graves. “Ben. Okay. Ben.”

Or not. Maybe all that was left of Ben was his face, his voice.

Wasn’t that enough?

And then, there was movement by the road, just a short distance in front of the car, and Armitage froze, his hands tight around the steering wheel. 

_Lights, get the lights._ He turned on the headlights, and there in the road was Mr. Snoke, on his hands and knees, covered in so much blood that only the sky blue of his weird enormous eyes was not horror movie-red. His mouth moved in a strange flapping way, and Armitage could not tell how well his jaw was attached anymore, but it didn’t matter, because, thank God, he could not hear him anyway.

It did not even occur to Armitage to hesitate. He jammed the key in the ignition, never breaking eye contact, and stepped on the gas, and pitched forward as fast as he could get the car to go in the span of less than fifty feet, not slowing down at all, even as he felt the impact of Mr. Snoke’s body striking the bumper, and then he was off, soaring, shaking, into the night.

* * *

Like the year before, Armitage would be living in a small private room on campus, sharing a Jack-and-Jill bathroom with the person living in the room next door. His new suitemate was named Poe -- a friendly guy, good hair, a good smile. He had knocked on the door to say hello just as Armitage was stocking up his bookshelf, emptying the big cardboard box of novels and notebooks that had previously contained bananas. 

“Hey, sorry, I won’t be too long. Just wanted to say hi. You a morning or evening shower guy?”

“Morning, for sure.”

“Good, perfect. I’ll be in there at night, so that works out. Thanks, man.”

Armitage smiled. “No problem.”

“You got any plans for Saturday?”

“Oh, man, I don’t even know what my plans for tonight are. I dunno. Maybe.”

“There’s gonna be an end-of-summer bonfire thing. A few of my buddies in the Air Force are throwing it at a barn just out of town. If you don’t have a car, you can ride with us.”

“Oh, I’ve got a car, don’t worry.” One that had been conveniently free of blood or dents when Armitage got home a few weeks before. In fact, it took seeing Mr. Snoke’s obituary in the paper for Armitage to understand the events of that night had been, yes, real, real real real. “That actually sounds pretty cool. I’ll take you up on that.”

“Bring your girl. Or guy. Or whoever.”

“He lives kinda far. Maybe next time.”

Poe nodded. “Well, if he shows, he’s invited too.”

“Appreciate it.”

Once Poe had returned to his own side of the bathroom door, Armitage returned to his task. The notebooks that Rey had given him were all there, plus the red one. She had texted him not long after Mr. Snoke had been reported dead.

_Saw the paper. Everything good?_

What else could Armitage say, other than what he did?

_Never better._

Second chances, after all, were so very rare, even if Ben was mostly Kylo Ren now. Such devotion, now that was the Ben he knew, the one he remembered, the one who would follow him wherever he went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! We're done! I was hoping this would be in by Halloween, but the first week of November is pretty spooky too, right?

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story about grief, and about friendship, and about being afraid.


End file.
